The musings of a cleantech startup entrepreneur based in the USA. This blog began as a way to document my experience during the IMD MBA in Switzerland and now is the place where I publish eclectic thoughts on business, politics, fitness, nutrition, music, travel, wine, sports, and whatever else I find noteworthy.

2010-01-05

2010

Having looked back at 2009 in my last post, now it is time to look ahead to 2010. Following are my New Year's resolutions laid out by category. I would like to publish these online and report on regular progress to maintain accountability. Can anyone recommend any good tools for this?

Relationships

1. Weekly date night with Katie--now that we're not on separate continents, I'll have to keep things interesting so she doesn't tire of me and kick me out!

2. Weekly personal contact with family/friends--even though I'm very, very extroverted and a very, very social creature, I tend to "turtle in" during times of stress or great work load (pretty much all the time these days!). This is exactly the opposite of what I should do since I draw my strength from my personal relationships. As much of a technologist as I am, I also can't let myself fall into the trap of believing that tweeting, blogging, and emailing are a substitute for real, in-person human contact. Therefore I resolve to reach out to my friends and family for in-person meet-ups at least once a week. This begins this weekend when my brother and favorite nephew are in town.

Health

Nutrition

1. Daily caloric intake under 3,250 calories--in 2008 I ingested ~3700 calories/day, 3500 in 2009. This year I'm going for a bigger jump. This will be tough now that I am back in the US--and Texas specifically--where portion sizes are crazy. I'll need strength of will to avoid my natural instinct of eating things just because they're there, even when I'm no longer hungry. I'll also focus on chewing slowly and staying hydrated.

2. Consume 60% of calories from carbs, 15% from protein and, at most, 25% from fat--2010 will not just be about how much I eat, but also what I eat. In Switzerland it was so easy to eat well with the farmer's market just below my window, fresh, healthy foods at restaurants, and plenty of support from like-minded peers. It will be harder to meet this goal now that I'm back in the land of Food, Inc. but I'm fortunate to have a tremendous asset in Katie. Her commitment to inventive and delicious cooking with fresh, natural foods may well be my saving grace; here again I'll just need to play my cards right so that she'll share with me.

Flexibility

1. Weekly yoga--The first half of 2009 saw my flexibility increase for the first time since . . . well, maybe ever . . . largely due to my weekly 1.5-hour sessions of ashtanga yoga. I got away from that commitment in the second half of the year and I can feel it. 2010 must see a return to yoga throughout the year. This starts tonight.

Cardiovascular Fitness

1. Daily caloric expenditure of at least 3,500 calories--this will put me on pace to reduce bodyfat by ~10 pounds this year. Sitting at my desk all day and in front of the computer or a football game on TV all evening will leave me with only 2,800 calories burned each day. I must find a way to burn an additional 700 calories each day, whether through more activity at the office, intentional exercise, or both. This should be achievable as last year I averaged 3,750 calories burned each day--but I was also walking around mountainous Switzerland much of the time so I'll need to step it up here in Houston.

2. Maintain lean muscle mass--Although I've been working toward "getting huge" for practically two decades now with, in all modesty, significant success, I am plenty strong and don't really need to be stronger. Although I will still be going all out in the gym, my priorities for 2010 are clearly focused on reducing bodyfat and that will take precedence over gaining strength--no more gorging myself after workouts in the name of protein!

3. Weekly Wii workouts--I'm really impressed with the Nintendo Wii and its ability to provide fun activities that elevate heart rate, burn calories, and improve neuromechanics. This year I will regularly involve the Wii in my workouts and track my progress using Wii Fit.

Sports

1. Win a men's doubles tournament at the A level--although my favorite partner is currently based in the UK, I'd really like to take my play up a notch this year.

2. Run at least three races

3. Run a 5k race in under 22 minutes--current PR is 23:45

4. Run a 10k race in under 55 minutes--I've never run a 10k race before but, when I run 10k as an aerobic jog, keeping my heart rate below 160, I currently finish in ~60 minutes.

5. Swim 2k--this weekend I swam 500m contiguously for the first time ever so this should be very feasible. Those who know me are aware that I sink like a rock in water so I've traditionally had to sprint to stay afloat--not very conducive to swimming long distances! However, after recent modifications to my freestyle mechanics, I've found a way to swim ~indefinitely, subject to my fitness level.

Professional

Relationships

1. Help/mentor a peer or colleague at least weekly--as it will be some time before Smart Office Energy Solutions has grown to the point of having many employees and business partners, I really need to be proactive in the early parts of 2010 to reach out to others who could benefit from any expertise, experience, or even just sounding board ability I can provide.

2. Touch base with one of my own mentors at least once weekly--I'm blessed to have some great, talented, brilliant, resourceful, high integrity mentors in my life and I need be proactive about keeping them abreast of how their influence is helping me along.

Time Management

1. Daily tweets of my goals and accomplishments--When you're the general manager of a start-up that faces a laundry list of to-dos in every business area every day, it is a real challenge to stay focused on the most urgent, critical issues. Therefore I am experimenting with using new media to create some accountability for myself. I will begin each day by tweeting my top few goals to accomplish before I hit the sack (One of today's was to write this blog entry!) and I will finish each day by reporting in on how I fared. 140 characters isn't enough to make excuses so the [peer] pressure will be on to nail them. This creates a virtual board of sorts to whom I am accountable and I certainly hope my followers will chide me when I fail. Perhaps they will also offer helpful suggestions when they see a goal that resonates with them. Each goal tweet will use the #dailygoal tag and my progress can be viewed at TrackDailyGoals. Hopefully this will also create a cool record of Smart OES's entrepreneurial journey.

Smart Office Energy Solutions

1. Close seed friends and family funding round by the end of March--I have $20k already committed and it's time to shake the trees for the remaining $80k.

2. Close first private placement round of funding by July--This will either be $500k of angel money or $3m+ from a VC, depending on a few factors. Either way, I need to begin laying the groundwork for it now.

3. Break even with $1.3m revenue for FY 2010--The clock is ticking and I need to close some more sales myself before we're able to hire up business development staff.

4. Reduce client energy bills by $500k--it will take some time for their savings to accrue but half a million is achievable if we begin installing this month.

5. Reduce US CO2 production by 300 tons--this will occur in the first year if we reach our sales targets. This is the double bottom line that attracted me to this business in the first place: the better we do, the better it is for the environment--and for our clients!

The Bryan Guido Hassin Professional Brand

1. Present original research/thought leadership at least once via conference presentation or article publication--I found the experience at the AAS's imagine09 conference to be very rewarding so I'll need to identify another such opportunity in 2010.

2. Earn 300 total twitter followers--I currently have over 100 after my first year of tweeting and I am very careful about pruning out the spammers. Doubling my growth rate would show increasing professional brand awareness. Here again I am eager to experiment with social media tools to see how they might benefit a a green technology executive in a new decade.

3. 5 daily LinkedIn profile views--this is currently 2-3 views daily. My LinkedIn profile is a good representation of my experience, accomplishments, skills, and recommendations, a great tool for making potential business partners, employees, investors, and others aware of what I offer. I'm not sure what a reasonable target is here as I have only my own historical data to go on--any suggestions?

There you have it, many personal and professional goals for 2010. I really would love to maintain a management-style dashboard for these so that I can map out intermediate progress and publish it. I can use a spreadsheet, of course, but a Web 2.0 tool would really be more appropriate. Suggestions welcome!

Happy 2010 everyone! May we all accomplish all our goals and more this year!

1 comment:

Great to catch up with you via this blog! I wish you success in all your endeavors, and I am confident in your ability to succeed in each and every one! Look forward to your updates. And let us know if you are ever visiting CH!